


Lips in Sync

by KendylGirl



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Competition, Dancing, Established Relationship, Love, M/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 16:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20642024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KendylGirl/pseuds/KendylGirl
Summary: The boys make an appearance on Lip Sync Battle.





	Lips in Sync

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, all of you must know that Willowbrooke has divine patience, and even when the Atlantic Ocean is calling her name, she still manages to find the time to read yet another of heap of my words. You're a saint!
> 
> Once it was suggested (shout out to DontSqueezeTheCharmie for that), I couldn't let this idea go; I figure if their lips are going to _pretend_ to do things, I'd rather it be this way than some other less appealing alternatives that the real world has presented to us of late...
> 
> If you're unfamiliar with the television show, _Lip Sync Battle_ (with hosts Chrissy Teigen and LL Cool J) features a pair of famous folks who go head-to-head, mimicking familiar songs with creative, often outlandish renditions. The contestant not performing typically stands to one side of the stage, against the prop of a bar, while Ms. Teigen inhabits the other side of the stage like the DJ who spins the tunes.
> 
> Tim's song here is "Moon Over Bourbon Street" by Sting; if you're not familiar with it, check it out here: [Song with lyrics](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd-F2rpXXZc)

Tim takes the stage dressed all in black, save his hands, which are sheathed in white satin.His face is downturned to his chest, obscured by the brim of a classic fedora.He is hunched forward, narrow shoulders rounded, both hands clutching the knob of an ebony walking stick, long fingers laced together in smooth agreement.

I’m not going to survive this, am I?

When the a slithering line of string bass and saxophone rope across the stage, the spotlight hits him from directly above, and I swear I see his shoulders ripple, a tremolo of bones, and my own skin puckers, swishes like kelp aiming for a distant sun, cool to the touch.The large suit he wears is stiff and formal, like an outdated tuxedo pieced up in my size, not his, the hems of the wide pants bunching atop the smooth patent leather of his feet.

His head shoots up so his face is bathed in light, head lolling backwards until his Adam’s apple could cut glass, eyes closed, lips painted so red they seem to stand an inch in front of him.

_ There’s a moon over Bourbon Street tonight_…

And when his chin drops, he takes in the audience in a slow rotation of his neck, 

_ I see faces as they pass beneath the pale lamp light_

before his gaze abstracts and his head sags back, those lips quirked in an indulgent, lazy smirk.

_ I’ve no choice but to follow that call_

_ The bright lights, the people, and the moon and all_…

I feel my mouth hanging open on creaky hinges, and out of the corner of my eye I see Chrissy cup her hand to her mouth and whoop.J elbows me.I fall against the bar and grip it blindly with both hands.

The stage flashes to life, a mock up of New Orleans, complete with antiquated streetlights and a smattering of beautiful people wandering and lingering and flirting with the night the way one has to in the Big Easy.He slithers among them, prim and leering, proper and filthy.

_ I pray every day to be strong_

_ for I know what I do must be wrong_…

The way he sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, shudders over the shoulder of a busty brunette in a red sequined dress who pretends not to notice him, as if he’s a phantom, as if he and the darkness are one.

_ Oh, you’ll never see my shade or hear the sound of my feet_

_ while there’s a moon over Bourbon Street_…

And he writhes as the haunting music washes over him, a struggle to contain himself, gripping the walking stick in both silent fists, raising it before him like a shield against a demon, the one he sees coming from the inside of his chest.

I breathe out, a whimper dying at the end of my tongue.God, I hope no one hears me, looks at my face for more than a few seconds—but who am I kidding?That’s all it would take anyway.Hell, I was dumb enough to let someone tape me while I watched footage of us, and I wrote sonnets with my eyes, stylized with a language of affection and need and sanctity that I had never allowed myself to hear before because it would deafen me, sing to me in dreams and quiet times, but it’s amazing what pours out of you when a mirror holds you up for a slow dissection, an inch at a time, until you’re spread out on the ground in helpless, dying fragments.

An anguished hand flies to his hat, clutches at the brim, flattens across its top with taut fingers.

_ It was many years ago _

_ when I became what I am_

The hand trails down his ear, to his cheek, to his throat, while the soft saxophone mocks him, the clicks of a cymbal clucking its tongue.

_ I was trapped in this life like an innocent lamb_.

He turns away from the glare, profile to the floor, contrition curling his shoulders, throwing the cane’s tip to the edge of his shoe, down to the ground which should contain him.

_ Now I can never show my face at noon_

_ And you’ll only see me walking_

_ by the light of the moon_.

His head wags, face concealed from the glare and the couple which passes him jauntily, a man in a pinstripe suit and his girl with stilettos and a flare skirt that brushes against Tim’s knee, whispering about nothing as they lean into one another and giggle.His head follows them, and it pulls his body around in a crouch, a predator barely in check.

_ The brim of my hat hides the eye of a beast_

_ I’ve the face of a sinner_…

And his hands flicker around him, the satin catching the lights like beacons.

_ But the hands of a priest_.

And I’ll pray to them.I will, I swear I will.Those hands could destroy me easily, one finger at a time, ten gods of salvation captured in trembling palms, every swirl, every pore, fitting into mine from the start.

_ Oh, you’ll never see my shade_

_ or hear the sound of my feet_

_ while there’s a moon over Bourbon Street_.

In the instrumental interlude, he tiptoes though the revolving stream of extras in rhythmic bursts, long strides and short, slithering against a shoulder, sticking his nose against a neck, reaching out for a hand, but ghosting past each time.He leaps onto a makeshift bench and crouches like he is ready to end it all, to leap from a cliff and let the abyss steal his fire.

He is perfectly still for two long seconds before he wrenches back and stands tall, leers over the crowd on the street.

Then, with two deft sweeps of his arms, he rips off the suit jacket and pants and tosses them aside to reveal a black leather jumpsuit painted on his frame like stardust from a heaven I’ve never known existed.Its front has a deep v-cut down to his navel, and his skin glows like the gloves still on his hands.What I had thought were staid dress shoes are actually knee high boots.

Fuck.

What is…I…I can’t…

Sweat.

I’m sweating.I…

He moves like a tailwind, jet propulsion, a swirl of atmosphere alight in the Milky Way.He bends and twists in ways no spine should allow, unmoored, hips living their own life on a gyration that could carve a valley where once there was stone.

Sweat, I…it too. 

Too hot in here.

Where—he.I.

Chair.Hold, yes I.Hold on.To it.Stop.If I… if.

It is merely instinct that bends me at the waist, turns me away from the audience with bugged eyes, jaw clicked so wide I can feel the saliva tip over my lip and wet my chin.It looks like amusement, I’m convinced.I could be laughing, overwhelmed at his audacity, could be cheering like Chrissy, who’s climbed up by her turntable on the other side of the stage, fist pumped to the air as the audience roars.But really I’m in pain, rock hard, dizzied by every second, close to blacking out.I need to protect myself, to fall against the set’s frame and pray it doesn’t collapse along with me.

_ She walks every day_

_ through the streets of New Orleans_; 

And one petite, golden-haired beauty emerges from the others, hair pulled back in an artful ponytail, dress as white as Arctic snow, clutching at a small handbag, blinking wide eyes, wondering at the neon collection of signs hanging at menacing angles along the backdrop, taking hesitant strides, a socialite Dorothy on her own yellow brick road of inevitable sin. 

_ she’s innocent and young_

_ from a family of means_.

He tosses his hat into the audience like a frisbee, and his hair is slicked tight to his skull.He raises both arms, roiling in the freedom, bares his fangs to the crowd and shakes off the remnants of his false civility, the monster freed at last.Suddenly, he springs forward, tucking up his legs before landing behind her, swarming her, slipping into the role of her shadow, rippling his body from top to bottom, moving lightly in sync with her, every delicate step choreographed and fluid. 

_ I have stood many times outside her window at night, _

_ to struggle with my instinct_

_ in the pale moonlight_…

His red lips brush her hair, and I burn hotter.She angles her head in a mute question to herself as she chooses her direction on the makeshift sidewalk, offering up unawares her cheek, her ear, the sensitive flesh of her neck exposed to him for his feast.

I claw the bar’s surface, my hips resetting independently, driving themselves into the blunt edge of the counter until it can stem the flow of blood below my waist, but my chest heaves undeterred, seethes at this unlucky intrusion, lungs bruised by the cinders of the air around me.

No.

Mine.

That’s mine.

All of it, every cell.

He’s _mine_.

He has to ruin _me._

He has to.

He has.

_ How could I be this way_

_ When I pray to God above?_

And he shifts away, tugging on the short silk of his hair, only to angle back, his face masked with the intensity of a surgeon prepared to make the deepest cut. 

_ I must love what I destroy_

_ and destroy the thing I love_.

Destroyed.Completely.I am, in a state of perpetual anguish.J side-eyes me and laughs outright, grabs my shoulder and gives it a sympathetic squeeze.“I feel for you, man,” he mutters.“Damn, brother, you’ve got _no_ chance!”

I stare at him imploringly, like somehow he can piece me back together before parts of me fall off the stage and are trampled on by the shrieks of the audience, before my eyes melt out of their sockets, before my nose bleeds a colorless liquid of pure desperation.

Tim spasms, grabs the girl by the shoulders, swarms in front of her to fix his fangs to her throat.She goes limp at the same moment I choke, lets Tim lower her backward onto the bench a corpse, place the flat of his palm on her cheek for a reverent moment.In a flurry, he arranges her limbs like a magician setting up his trick—ankles crossed, demure hands folded in her lap—and ticks her head to the side just a bit, as if she were lost in contemplation.He sweeps back to survey his work, and at the last second, jabs one finger at the corner of her mouth to curl it up, and it reshapes her entire demeanor.One small change, and evil lives here.With a thunk the glow of the stage lights shifts to a cold white so her dress now mimics the eerie glow of his gloves, makes her a sinister card ready to play her way into Hades.

He drifts away in light sidesteps, red mouth caressing each word.

_ Oh, you’ll never see my shade_

_ or hear the sound of my feet,_

_ while there’s a moon over Bourbon Street._

And with the last haunted licks of sax and bass, he presses his hands together in front of his chest, the devout man praying for deliverance, a plea for absolution.

The lights go black for three long seconds.

Then, the spotlight slams on, directly over her, still perched on the bench, now with a trickle of blood running from the corner of her mouth where the devil has touched her, anointed her.

But he is gone.

* * *

The stage reset will take about an hour, so I give a distracted wave to Chrissy and lumber through the labyrinth of hallways to my dressing room, running my palm up against the walls to steady me.I rip open the door with my name, lock it behind me, sag against it until I’m practically sitting over open air.

“Well?”

I just stare at him as he twirls around in one of the make-up chairs, swallow roughly to force my mouth closed.

He sees it—of course he does—sees it all over me, smells it on me like musk, and his face grows more feral. He saunters over to me, leather squeaking softly with each movement, and I straighten, flatten myself against the door, watch him inch closer and closer until his breath leaves tracks against the skin of my neck.“Well?” he repeats, the question softer.His eyelashes flutter.“I did good?”

I blink at him.His eyes are still black from the darkness he’d moved in, lips still that deep scarlet, wet where he’d run his tongue one way and the other.He smells like sweat, and that alone could make me come.Even without the freckle on his neck dancing under his heavy pulse.Or the outline of the individual muscles in his legs.Or the hair below his belly button exposed by the deep point of the costume.Or the searing heat of his groin inches from mine.“You did good,” I whisper.

A smile, _his_ smile, the one mixed with bashfulness and brine, the one that’s made me his slave from day one.“Ok, then.Your turn.”He angles forward, puts his palm on the door next to my head.“Go ahead. Let's see you top _that_, Hammer.”

“Tim…”A puff of air as I laugh, and my hands skim over the sweet butter leather, around his narrow waist, against his ribs, into his back, until he makes a soft noise and relaxes into it, until his arm buckles and he falls against me.“_Timmy_…”My hands wrap around his hips, knead the gentle moon of his ass, fingertips clenching to mark the delicate crescent where I long to be.“I fully intend to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy, I sure hope that you were able to visualize his act the way I did; there was a pretty good view inside my head, and I pray I was able to convey it to you!
> 
> The reference to Armie allowing someone to videotape him watching footage is from March 2019 when British _GQ_ got him to watch clips of _Call Me By Your Name_ and offer commentary. As usual, the most commentary was actually offered by Armie's eyes, not his mouth.
> 
> I rather optimistically put up a number for another chapter for Armie's response--but that really depends upon _your_ response, so please talk to me!


End file.
